One of the coolest indie booths at PAX East was Midwest Games, mostly because they had a custom Polycade cabinet. On that cabinet was Ra Ra Boom, a retro-inspired beat ‘em up/brawler with design elements informed in part by fighting games. With a fun but not too silly story hook and deeply impressive hand-drawn art, Ra Ra Boom has a lot going for it to help it stand out in a crowded genre.
On paper, Ra Ra Boom’s premise is appropriately silly in that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles kind of way. Your heroes are a team of “ninja cheerleaders from space,” and there’s an archetypal nature to the squad. You have the big, sturdy one, the one that’s kind of spunky and well-rounded, the one that’s literally just a ninja, and the, uh, gadgety one. But there’s more to it than checking boxes.
During the demo I played there was only so much story available, and I wasn’t really using headphones or paying close attention during cutscenes. That was partially because I was going co-op with a rep at the booth, and partially because I didn’t want to spoil things for myself in that convention environment. That’s because the parts that did catch my attention were intriguing, with a surprising gravity and serious tone. One moment in particular had me making a “D:” face, which caught me off guard.
It isn’t just about the writing, of course. Ra Ra Boom does the beat ‘em up thing well, but has a few twists prepared. For starters, it uses a “lane” system, almost like Fatal Fury. Brawlers have always been about vertical movement, but having your characters “snap” to lanes in a sense allows for more deliberate placement, which is important for both boss fight gimmicks, and things like setting up and maintaining combos.
That latter point is especially important, because as I mentioned earlier Ra Ra Boom borrows a bit from fighting games. Each character actually has a launcher command, which allows for airborne combat and a spike as well. Each character also has a ranged option, among their other bespoke tools. So having the lanes as a static part of gameplay allows for more expressive and consistent combo creativity from players, eliminating some of the spacial guesswork brawlers with combo systems can fall prey to.
It’s kind of a preview cliche, but I can’t help but say once again I’m curious to try more of Ra Ra Boom beyond my small preview. The potential ceiling is quite high here, and I’d love to see exactly how high it gets. Every part of this game: visually, mechanically, narratively, has me intrigued. It’s hard to hit all those buttons at once in a convention show floor demo. That should be indication enough Ra Ra Boom is worth paying attention to, especially for those of you who are already down for the classic brawler style on a ground floor level.
Ra Ra Boom is coming to PC, with a 2024 targeted release window. The publisher provided hands-on access to a demo build at PAX East for the purposes of this preview.
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replyLucas White posted a new article, Ra Ra Boom is a surprisingly sincere brawler about ninja space cheerleaders saving the day
